Money

When you're ready to buy or sell a preowned aircraft, you'd be wise to start the process by going online. Our own BJTonline.com includes reviews of many models and-particularly in the site's Buyers' Guide section-lots of information about acquiring, financing and insuring aircraft. Many other Web sites can help you research models you're considering or determine demand and pricing for one you want to sell.

If you're in the market for a new business aircraft, the time to buy could be now. The reason is the bipartisan Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010, which became law on December 17. The Act includes 100-percent expensing for tax purposes of investments in capital assets, such as business aircraft, purchased between Sept. 8, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2011.

The good news about business aircraft financing today is that the money is back. One of the first consequences of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown was that capital disappeared faster than free beer. Many aircraft lenders still proclaimed that they were "ready to do deals," but often they lacked the financial horsepower to deliver on that promise.

Because the used-aircraft market enjoyed a robust fourth quarter in 2010, you might expect the current year to witness at least a slow and steady uptick in transactions. That could well be what happens, but keep in mind that fourth-quarter activity is often upbeat-2008 being a key exception-and that this market's future depends heavily on what happens with the overall economy.

Not everyone can register an aircraft in the U.S. For starters, in most cases you have to be a U.S. citizen, as defined by federal statutes and FAA regulations. Under applicable statutes and FAA rules, a corporation isn't considered a U.S. citizen unless its president, two-thirds of its board of directors, two-thirds of its "managing officers" and three-quarters of its owners are U.S.

ELSEWHERE IN THIS ISSUE, YOU'LL FIND PLENTY of discussion about the tangible and intangible benefits of using business aviation, but what about the expenses? Nobody ever said flying privately is cheap, but the good news is that it can be less costly than you might think-if you take steps to minimize expenses.

Today I dusted off a book that I've had for 45 years: Air Navigation, Department of the Air Force. Flipping through the book-which was a gift from an Air Force navigator, the father of one of my Cub Scout buddies-always stirs up memories. One concerns the time my buddy, Richie, and I submitted unsolicited pencil-sketch proposals for fighter jets to the Kennedy Administration.

Wall Streeters and other experts have been making a variety of persuasive but conflicting predictions about where the economy is headed. Will a recovery be shaped like a V? Or a U? Or perhaps a W? One expert even suggested an L-shaped condition, in which a nosedive would be followed by an indefinite period where we skid sideways along the bottom.